Housing Instability and HIV Risk: Expanding our Understanding of the Impact of Eviction and Other Landlord-Related Forced Moves

The study purpose is to comprehensively measure landlord-related forced moves (inclusive of, but not restricted to, legal eviction), and to examine whether landlord-related forced moves is associated with HIV risk. Baseline survey data was collected between 2017 and 2018 among 360 low-income participants in New Haven, Connecticut. We used multivariable logistic regression analyses to examine associations between landlord-related forced moves and HIV sexual risk outcomes. Seventy seven out of three hundred and sixty participants reported a landlord-related forced move in the past 2 years, of whom 19% reported formal eviction, 56% reported informal eviction and 25% reported both. Landlord-related forced moves were associated with higher odds of unprotected sex (AOR 1.98), concurrent sex (AOR 1.94), selling sex for money or drugs (AOR 3.28), exchange of sex for a place to live (AOR 3.29), and an HIV sexual risk composite (ARR 1.46) (p < .05 for all). We found robust associations between landlord-related forced moves and HIV sexual risk. Findings suggest that the social and economic consequences of landlord-related forced moves may impact sexual vulnerability.

Experiencias de victimización en mujeres sin hogar del sur de España

La feminización de la pobreza ha dado lugar a un aumento del número de mujeres sin hogar. El objetivo de este trabajo, basado en una investigación cualitativa, es conocer la presencia de experiencias de victimización en población sin hogar femenino tanto de manera previa a la situación de calle como durante la misma. Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto el impacto que tiene la vulnerabilidad y violencia de género en sus trayectorias biográficas. Asimismo, muestran cómo la vulnerabilidad sexual está muy presente en la experiencia de sinhogarismo femenino entendida como una particularidad de género de esta población. The feminisation of poverty has give rise to the number of homeless women. The aim of this work, based on a qualitative research methodology, is to know about the existence of victimisation experiences among the women homeless population both before and during the homeless situation. The results have shown vulnerability and gender´s violence impact on biographical trajectories of the interviewed women. As well, it showed how the sexual vulnerability has a significant presence in the women homelessness experience, being possible understanding that as a real gender particularity.

Yelling the Yellows

The 1890s were the heyday of America’s newsboys. The nation’s newspapers rose in number and circulation and its cities swelled with poor immigrant families in need of extra income. African Americans also gravitated to the news trade but encountered much opposition due to Jim Crow segregation. Jacob Riis introduced photography as a tool of reform. Newsgirls came under special scrutiny due to their sexual vulnerability. As ubiquitous in popular culture as they were on city streets, newsies became versatile symbols of enterprise and exploitation in songs, stories, and the sassy color comic strip that gave “yellow journalism” its name. Newsboys’ cries stoked the jingoism that sparked America’s “splendid little war” abroad and rekindled the acrimony that fueled labor unrest at home. They expressed their own discontent in dozens of strikes, climaxing in 1899 with a two-week tussle with those two “great octopuses” of New York journalism, Joseph Pulitzer’s Evening World and William Randolph Hearst’s Evening Journal, all of which helped to remake and reawaken the American working class.

Vulnerable subjects and autonomous actors: The right to sexuality education for disabled under-18s

International human rights standards are clear that children and young people have a right to sexuality education. Nevertheless, the delivery of such education is often considered questionable, particularly for groups of children perceived as more ‘vulnerable’. In this article, the example of the right to access sexuality education for disabled children is used to explore the autonomy/vulnerability dynamic. Historically, sexuality education has been denied to disabled children, ostensibly to protect them from information and activities perceived as inappropriate due to their (perceived) greater vulnerabilities. It is argued, however, that discourses of sexual vulnerability can actually be dangerous in themselves. Sexuality education, rather than being a threat to disabled under-18s, serves as a way to increase their autonomy by equipping them with tools of knowledge around sex and relationships. This case study demonstrates how the autonomy of under-18s is not something inherent in them but something which can be enhanced through recognition of rights such as education and information, as well as recognition of adult responsibilities to facilitate this.

Sexual Coercion in America

Sexual violence has a surprisingly static history, whether regarding methods of sexual assault, the relationship of sexual vulnerability to economic and social vulnerability, an underlying suspicion of women’s claims of sexual force, or an emphasis on physical violence as the only believable means of coercion. This chapter explores the legal, social, and cultural meanings of rape throughout US history from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. It includes discussions of feminist activism, rape culture, racism, and the overall relationships between social power and sexual power. While legal treatment of sexual violence has changed over time, the ability for powerful men to coerce less powerful women into sexual acts remains a remarkably consistent feature of America’s social, economic, and cultural past and present.

Men’s Sexual Coerciveness, Perceptions of Women’s Attachment, and Dating Preferences

This study examined whether sexually coercive men are uniquely drawn to certain attachment styles in women. Specifically, it employed an experimental design to investigate what sorts of inferences men draw about women based on women’s attachment styles and whether a woman’s attachment style may serve as an indicator of vulnerability, rendering sexually coercive men more attracted to some women than to others. One-hundred thirty-six college men completed a measure of sexual coerciveness and answered questions about personal ads experimentally manipulated for portrayed attachment style. Findings suggest that sexually coercive men may be more attracted to women with characteristics associated with sexual vulnerability. Additionally, men perceive women differently based on their attachment styles, and sexually coercive men may perceive women differently than do other men.